


Overqualified

by RedValkyrie



Category: Supernatural, The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Slice of Life, Teen Dean Winchester, Teen Sam Winchester, Teen Winchesters (Supernatural), Zombie Apocalypse, Zombies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-02
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2019-10-20 18:40:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,916
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17627555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedValkyrie/pseuds/RedValkyrie
Summary: They had trained their whole (admittedly very short) lives to fight the deadliest monsters in the dark. In comparison, the hordes of the undead turned out quite disappointing. A slice of life from teenage Sam and Dean wandering through the zombie apocalypse trying to meet up with their dad.Warning: I haven't actually seen anything past like halfway through the second season of the Walking Dead. This is set before Rick Grimes wakes up.This is a result of midnight plot bunnies and sleeplessness. Sequel chapters come whenever I am inspired, but each one can be read separately.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Set pre-Supernatural and pre-The Walking Dead.

They had learned a lot in the past few weeks. One of those things was to stay in the middle of the road. Sure, it felt counterproductive, given that they were in the open, exposed and right in the path of any approaching vehicles, but it also meant nothing could get the jump on them. After Sam nearly stumbled over a legless walker in the ditch beside the road, they quickly scampered to the middle of the asphalt.

They liked it better this way, without having to worry so much about what was lurking between the trees. It was kind of fun, sauntering down the two lanes of asphalt, walking in a place where no sane parent would ever let their kid walk. Obviously, they weren’t scared of cars. In fact, they hadn’t seen one in nearly a week.

It was a wonderful day in april. The kind, that, if they had a lake and the time, would be spent entirely floating around in wonderfully cool water. A slight breeze was playing with Dean’s slightly too long hair. He had his green canvas jacket tied around his waist, enjoying the cool wind on his bare arms. He hadn’t felt this good in a while. Neither boy had showered for a long time, and usually they were stuck with a kind of sticky and gross feeling beneath their jackets. Dean was aware he had road dust stuck to his face and neck, but they were rationing their water.

Honestly, the day was as good as it could be. And of course, this was the day Sam decided to go all out on the complaining.

“I just don’t see why we should go to Liberty.” The eleven year old whined. Dean rolled his eyes. Here we go again. Like they hadn’t had this discussion every day since the school closed.

“Because that’s where Dad is waiting.” He started out patiently, hoping this wouldn’t get as bad as that time last week, where they had ended up yelling at each other. The commotion had attracted swarms of walkers their way, and they ended up cutting across the forest to another parallel road to get rid of the shambling hordes. It never got to blows, but Dean nearly had a heart attack knowing he had been baited into putting his kid brother in danger.

“He told us that three months ago. There is no guarantee he is still there.”

“He told us he’d be there. He knows we’re going there. He’ll be there.” Cell phones had stopped working even before school went out. Their Dad would know he had no choice but to stay put. And if anyone could stay put in a moderately large town during the zombie apocalypse, it was John Winchester.

“He could be dead, for all we know! You heard what those people said earlier: we gotta stay out of the cities.” Dean rubbed his eyes, trying not to snap at the kid. He tried not to think too much of that remote possibility.

“Have you ever met Dad? I mean, we’ve kicked the ass of every dead fucker in our way so far, and he is way tougher than we are. Can you really see one of these shambling losers getting to him?” It was a good argument. Sam mulled it over for a while. Even he could not deny their father’s badassness.

“Sure...” The boy conceded, and Dean could already hear the ‘but’ coming. “But, there should be way more of them in Liberty. I mean, everyone else we’ve met have been running away from there. Even if Dad is alive, he might have joined another group or something. Or maybe he doubled back to look for us at the motel. I mean, he told us to get to Liberty before all this shit spread everywhere. He wouldn’t really expect us to walk two hundred miles with freaking zombies everywhere, would he?”

“Not originally, no.” Dean admitted. “But now that has happened, and I know it sucks, but he said he would be in Liberty, and even if it isn’t ideal, that is where we’ll have to go to find him again. If he had to flee town he would have left a message for us there.” Dean adjusted the compound hunting bow hanging over his shoulder, a gesture of finality. 

He still had his gun tucked in the waistband of his jeans, but he learned quickly that not only did he have limited ammunition, the noise drew way too many zombies to be worth it for anything but an emergency. At least the arrows were quiet and could be retrieved in most cases. The draw weight was a bit too heavy for him, but he would be damned if he left a good weapon behind just because it strained him a bit. It had been a stroke of luck to loot it from a twice dead deer hunter. Beside his gun and knife, Sam had looted a weapon as well. A large hammer with a long handle. He was strong for an eleven year old, but he could not swing a machete hard enough to split someone’s skull. The hammer did most of the work for him, as long as he got them down to his level.

Sam gave him about half an hour of blessed silence. Dean was pretty sure there was a small village coming up and was considering whether they should cut off the road and go around, when Sam spoke up again.

“What if Dad just doesn’t care?” It was said in a low voice, so low Dean wouldn’t have heard him if it hadn’t been for the all encompassing eerie silence. He spun around to face his brother immediately, all thoughts of the upcoming challenge gone from his mind.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Dean’s attempt at reigning in his anger did little for the scorning disbelief in his voice. Sam shuffled his feet awkwardly. Dean was tempted to tell him to stop that. It might be a long time until they could get the kid new shoes.

“I just mean, he’s always put hunting ahead of us, and now that there are hunts literally everywhere... why would he want us around?” Dean was at a loss for words for a moment. He wanted to tell Sam that their Dad loved them... but he had never been an affectionate man, and he didn’t want to get into an argument. So instead, Dean did the mature thing and cuffed the boy up the head.

“Ouch! What was that for, jerk?!” Dean grinned. Crisis averted. Sam would not call him that if this was a real argument.

“For being a whiny bitch, bitch.” Sam pushed him, and Dean staggered a few steps to the side just to be nice to the poor squirt. Dean had a couple of growth spurts since he hit puberty last year, and was by this point the tallest kid in his class. The other boys who had been growing like crazy were gangly and awkward, but the regular PT and probably good genes meant Dean had filled out quickly. He could easily pass for older than fifteen if he wanted to.

“Yo, is that one of them?” Dean turned his attention back to the road ahead of them. Far away, slightly obscured by heat radiating off of the asphalt, there was a humanoid figure, moving alone in the middle of the road towards them. He calculated what he had seen on the map, and guessed the figure was not far from the upcoming town.

Sure, it moved a bit suspiciously, but he couldn’t tell at this distance. He shrugged, and Sam picked the binoculars he wore around his neck to get a better look. The boy got them as a present from a teacher to watch birds. Dean had teased him about it for a while until he realized the kid was actually serious about gandering at every feathery puff that flew past them.

“It is.” The kid confirmed. Dean measured the distance.

“I can it him from here.” He asserted. Their father had been very thorough in his weapons training, and the bow had a long range. There were advantages to the heavy draw weight.

“Sure, but it’s close to town. Might be we would attract more attention when we retrieve the arrow. Maybe we should double around?” Dean glanced around them. The forest was thick, and while the road was somewhat flat, there were hills around them that would make it easy to get lost.

“We need more food anyway.” He pointed out. He pulled out the map from his jacket pocket and unfolded it. The village was tiny, barely a dozen houses around the one road. They could take on every single inhabitant if need be. Sure, he didn’t like marching Sam straight into danger, but he knew from experience that starvation was no fun, and he didn’t want Sam to go hungry either. 

They had been close to running out of money before the school closed, but Dean had locked Sam in their motel room and barreled into the local Walmart, managing to pull as much food as he could carry with him in the confusion. He was pretty sure most people didn’t pay. Hell, from the looks of it, most people who wanted to pay couldn’t, because the staff was busy emptying the shelves themselves. Still, supplies were running short.

“So we’re going through?” Sam asked. He didn’t seem to bothered. Dean nodded.

“If this goes south, we haul ass and double around, okay?” The kid nodded, and Dean turned his attention back towards the approaching dead man. He could see it was a man from this distance, wearing some form of blue apron. A grocery store clerk, perhaps? That was a good sign. If he got turned before he could ditch his uniform, it was possible the store hadn’t been looted yet.

Putting him down before they got too close would reduce the possibilities of them drawing attention. Dean readied the bow, placing an arrow on the string. The muscles in his arm protested as he pulled the string back, just having time to take one calming breath before letting the thin carbon arrow fly. He had learned quickly he had to aim before drawing the bow, or he would slip the string and the arrow would go wide.

He was pretty sure it hit, but the thing didn’t go down. He glanced at Sam, who used the binoculars to check. “You hit him in the throat. Go just a tad bit higher.” Dean nodded and tried again. The zombie fell this time around, landing sprawled on his back. Sam grinned. “I think you hit him in the eye.” Dean grinned back and hung the bow back on his shoulder, speeding up a bit to get the arrows back.

“Practice makes perfect, I guess.” Sam nodded.

“Still. It feels kind of anticlimactic. Like, according to the movies we should be neck deep in guts right now.”

“I know right? I mean, I’m not one for complaining, but I didn’t think this shit would be so boring.”

“It’s almost like we’re overtrained. Dad trained us to fight shit that actually fights back. These things are even weaker than normal people. Just shambling idiots. It’s almost not fair.”

“Like killing a sleepwalker.” Dean agreed. Sam made a bitchface.

“Way to make us sound like the bad guys, Dean.” He scolded. Dean shrugged.

“You’re right, though. We were more prepared for this than most.”

“Did we really do PT every morning for this? This like studying for a test and finding out you were using the high school study guide instead of the middle school one.” They had caught up with the fallen zombie. Dean made sure he was really down before yanking out the arrows, careful not to break them. Sam was right, he hit the guy straight through the eye. The tip of the arrow had pierced the back of the guy’s skull. He dried off the blood and brain matter on the guy’s apron before returning the arrows to his back quiver.

“The bowhunting was worth it, though.”

“Touche.”


	2. Worth It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dean has to choose between finding his father and helping a family in need. As if that wasn't hard enough, this all had to happen in the middle of a freaking rainstorm. Great.

They were having lunch in someone’s treehouse. It was actually a pretty awesome build, a large platform around the trunk of a huge oak, with a roof above it. It kept them safe from any passing threat below and the much more real threat from above. The rain had been pouring steadily all day, and Dean suspected it would continue for a while. They had hung their jackets and shirts to dry under the rafters, and sat swaddled in their dry sleeping bags to keep warm. Dean made sure Sam didn’t shift so a corner would fall off the edge and get wet. The upside of the cold weather was that the half-gallon of milk they had picked up from a still working fridge was still good, and they were currently consuming their last Lucky Charms.

Sam had poured the remaining dust from the bag into his milk and was drinking it happily from a plastic coffee cup.

Dean updated his list of supplies, scrawled on a repurposed notebook from school. They were now out of milk and cereal, but they still had power bars, candy (Sam insisted, and Dean was not about to turn him down), pop-tarts and some canned goods left. They had picked it from the back room of a store after the shelves had been cleaned out. He looked at the list to see what kind of food it was.

Canned soup, chilli, canned beans (ew), fruit, luncheon meat.., yep, they would be fine for another week at least. If they rationed (which meant Dean eating less and Sam going on, because the kid was going to grow soon,) it could last them even longer. They would reach Liberty soon after that, and then Dean wouldn’t have to worry as much about this anymore. He was looking forwards to passing the torch back to his father.

The smell of rain was overpowering. It had only been a couple of weeks of chaos, but the world seemed to have changed completely. The hammering of the water droplets on the roof was a welcome change from the usual eerie silence. Dean had never noticed it before, but he was used to sounds: the woosh of cars in the distance, the ringing of a phone, the buzzing of power lines. There seemed to be a statewide blackout, which might explain the fact that cell phones were dead.

Sam set aside his cup and leaned on Dean, his head drooping. Dean reached an arm out to hug him tighter and considered if he should let the kid sleep for a while. Waiting out the rain might not be such a bad idea, and they didn’t have a place to sleep tonight anyway, so they might need the shuteye. The downside, of course, would mean they had to walk in the pitch dark, and that was not something he liked doing. All street lights were out, so when it went dark, it went real dark. Like, can’t see your hand in front of your face dark.

Suddenly, Sam jerked up, out of his grip. Dean had his bow in his hand before he had fully registered the motion. Sam was completely quiet and tense as he pointed out into the rain. Someone were moving out there, a relatively fast pace, but lumbering or stumbling through the rain. It was a long time since they had seen any living around. He cocked an arrow, approaching the edge of the platform, while Sam readied his binoculars. Dean waited for the go-ahead as the figure out in the rain stumbled down the road between crashed and parked cars. Sam’s eyebrows knit together over the binoculars. The sleeping bag fell off his naked shoulders as he leaned forwards intently, looking for something.

“I think it might be human.” He announced in a low voice. Dean looked back at the shambling figure, huddled together and tripping over its own feet. Well, there didn’t seem to be much else around, so he might as well call out and see if he got a response.

He whistled sharply, a sound that could be heard above the heavy rain. The figure stopped in its tracks, not too far past them, and turned slowly, looking around. Dean whistled again, arrow ready.

“I think he’s trying to call out.” Sam announced, watching intently.

“I don’t hear anything. Could be a zombie just moving its mouth.” The figure seemed to have figured out which direction they were in. It had something red and black over its head, a thick wool blanket or something, but its face peaked out underneath. It was holding on to the edges of the blanket to keep it over its head, but that did not mean much. A thing Dean had noticed was that a lot of zombies kept on with some seemingly counterproductive gestures even after being turned. If whoever this was had been holding a blanket over their head, it was fair to assume they would keep doing that until they had something better to do. Dean prepared to pull back the string as the small figure entered the garden beneath them, stumbling past the white picket fence, head still searching for their exact location.

“Hello?” The voice was low and weak, barely heard above the rain, but Dean could make out how desperate it sounded. He lowered the bow and returned the arrow to the quiver.

“Up here!” Sam called out, leaning out far enough to get his hair wet. The figure was standing right beneath them, but looked up to face them.

“Help, please!” Dean tossed down the rope ladder, and small hands grabbed into it. The kid seemed too exhausted to climb, so Dean grabbed onto the top rung and started pulling once the kid had a good grip. Sam helped pull, and soon enough, the kid was lying sprawled on the plank floor, panting heavily and sobbing in relief. The drenched blanket fell off her head, and Dean got his first good look at the little girl.

She was a bit older than Sam, maybe twelve or thirteen. The asian girl was wearing a catholic school uniform, the kind with a plaid skirt and stockings, white shirt and blue cardigan. Underneath the blanket, raven black hair was clinging flat to her heart shaped face and thin neck. She was wearing leggings under her skirt, torn on the knees from what seemed to be multiple falls, and the skin beneath was torn and bloodied. She was shivering constantly, and Dean knew there was a significant chance she’d catch hypothermia if they didn’t get her warmed up, and soon.

“Thank you.” She broke the silence, trying to prop herself up so she could look at them. Sam had scampered to the back of the treehouse, sitting so he would be out of the way. He was holding the sleeping bag tighter around himself now. Dean unzipped his bag and pulled out a towel, handing it to her and helping her sit up.

“Here, dry your hair.” He took away her blanket, aware that it wouldn’t do her much good in this state. She took the towel gratefully, beginning to dry out her hair and neck. Getting warm was her first priority. Only when she was somewhat dry and wrapped in Dean’s somewhat dry jacket did she begin to answer questions.

“My name is Blaire.” She told them. “Please, you’ve got to help my parents! The whole place is surrounded!” Dean coaxed the full story out of her, his frown deepening with every word. She had been holed up with her family in a radio station on a hill to the east after her school closed. They had been trying to establish contact with someone outside the infected zone, but her older brother had been on guard and fired off a shot, drawing a huge horde to their front door. Most of the family had barricaded themselves in the radio room, but Blaire had been separated from them and ended up outside, cutting through the forest to go get help. Once she hit the road she had been running until exhausted, and that was when she had met them.

“Please help them. My brother had the only weapon, and they - oh god - they got to him.” Blaire sobbed, burying her face in the jacket.

“We’ve got to help.” Sam announced, speaking up for the first time. So far, he had been curled up in the corner, too shy to look straight at their guest.

“It’s in the wrong direction.” Dean pointed out. “If we don’t get to Liberty soon, Dad will get worried.” Read, Dad might not be there anymore “And besides, taking on a whole horde is a huge risk. For all we know, the family is gone already.” As much fun as they’d had already, Dean was under no illusions as to what would happen to his baby brother if they got swarmed. Blaire curled up more as Dean’s words sunk in, but Dean knew she would never survive in this brave new world if people weren’t honest with her.

Sam drew bitchface #364, the ‘I-am-so-disappointed-in-you’ look he usually reserved for when Dean broke up with some girl in a needlessly cruel way, turned up to eleven to match the life or death situation. Add in a touch of puppy eyes, and Dean was turned long before Sam began his speech.

“Isn’t this what we do? Save people, hunt things? Dad would never leave these people to their fate.” The kid sulked. “Besides, what are we supposed to do with Blaire otherwise? Are you really gonna drag her to Liberty, right past her family home without doing anything?”

“ _ We _ are not going anywhere.” Dean said decisively. Sam opened his mouth to protest, but Dean shut him up with a stern look. Saving people, hunting things, was indeed Directive #2. but it did not erase the importance of Directive #1: Take Care of Sammy. “You are staying right here with Blaire.”

“But...”

“Look at the kid.” Dean gestured towards her. “She is in no state to go anywhere, and we can’t leave her alone. So you are staying here to look after her and our stuff. I’ll be back in a couple of hours. Do not leave this treehouse until then, not for anything. And if you absolutely have to, climb up on the water tower over there, and wave your arms so I can see you when I get back.”

He left most of their stuff behind with Sammy, not wanting anything to slow him down. All he brought was his bow and arrows, his ivory handle pistol, a machete, a med kit and a bottle of water, hung in a small bag on his back, tied closely so it wouldn’t bounce around. He got his jacket back from Blaire, aware that the extra layer would be soaked by the time he was done, but a lot warmer than going out in just his t-shirt and flannel. It was typical that this rescue mission would arise in the middle of a freaking monsoon. He fussed over Sam as much as he could before he left, half because he was sick with worry about what could happen to the kid while he was off, and half because he really didn’t want to subject himself to the torrent outside.

Eventually he couldn’t put it off anymore, and took the leap out of the treehouse in one jump, landing in a splash of mud that immediately caked his boots. He sent a silent prayer of thanks that his father had imparted the importance of polishing them daily, or his feet would be soaked by now. He set off on a brisk pace, wanting to get there and back as quickly as possible.

Blaire had mapped out the way to the radio station on a piece of paper from his notebook, along with a rough sketch of the station and the entrances. Despite the awful weather, it wasn’t too hard to find the landmarks she had pointed out. Basically, if he was going in the right direction and walking upwards, he was going to end up at the right place eventually.

He left the small suburb behind and began walking uphill in the forest, following a creek Blaire had mentioned navigating by. She had told him it went to the left of the station. Usually, it went in a small pipe beneath the gravel road headed up, but the flooding was so big that it flowed over the road, so rapidly that she couldn’t get down that way.

He had been walking for about half an hour before he saw the first zombie. In the darkness of the woods, the mist and the pouring rain, he had no idea what it looked like. All he saw was a figure ahead, thrashing around. It seemed it had gotten it’s foot stuck in the mud and was unable to muster the coordination to get out. Dean crouched down and surveyed the immediate surroundings. The creek had a stony bottom, but it was overflowing, the water muddy and about as deep as his calf. He wasn’t sure it was a good idea to try and jump it either. Getting caught in this rapid would absolutely suck: if it didn’t kill him it would certainly pull him all the way down the hill again.

He was walking on moss, ankle deep and soaked like sponge, but he didn’t sink deeper than the roots of the moss. Getting stuck in the mud could potentially be the end for him, just like it was for the unfortunate zombie ahead. He decided not to shoot it. It wouldn’t get out of that jam until the rain stopped and the ground dried, and he didn’t want to wrestle through all that to retrieve the arrow. Instead he took a detour, walking around and continuing on upwards. The slope steepened and the trees got thicker, but that was actually a blessing, because he frequently needed the roots to gain footing and the trunks for leverage. Now that he was under a thick canopy of branches, the rain had changed from a constant pour to a hail of drops large enough to hurt upon impact on his battered jacket. He tried to pull his collar up to protect his sensitive neck, but eventually had to give up so he could keep a grip on his weapon. His only consolation was that he couldn’t really get wetter than he already was.

The second zombie managed to sneak up on him. One moment, all he saw was trees and mud, the next, the dead fucker was right on top of him. For the life of him, he couldn’t tell where it had come from. Like, you laugh at jump scares in horror movies, but this was exactly that, minus the dramatic music clue. It was even scarier without the movie actually, when you find yourself freezing up and wondering if your brain is playing a trick on you. The next thing Dean knew, he was on the ground, his bow knocked away somewhere, and it was all he could do to grab onto a pale forehead to keep clattering, ugly teeth off of his throat.

He had never felt smaller than he did right then, practically drowning in wet moss and mud as a man twice his size was trying his best to eat him alive. His mouth was so far open that Dean could see straight down, past his half-rotted teeth that had to have been nasty long before this guy joined the ranks of the undead, to his writhing tongue and down his throat. His breath was so bad it could be smelled over the overpowering smell of rain and forest.

Big arms were trying to claw at him, but the right one was badly broken and didn’t work well, and Dean managed to push him to the side so that it was hard to hit him with the left. Still, his jacket was stuck in a powerful fist.

Somewhere to his right, he could make out the shape of a decent size rock within arms reach. He shifted his left arm so that it was holding the zombie’s throat and prepared to reach for it. Before his fingers could grab around the rock, his left arm gave out, and he just managed to angle his elbow so it would keep the dead fucker from eating his face. He was close enough now that dean could feel his thick beard tickle his face, and he could feel the air move where the zombie was desperately trying to clamp down on his nose.

“Not the face, fucker” He hissed when his fingers finally closed around the rock. It was big, a lot bigger than he thought it would be, but he got a hold of the jagged side and swung it at his opponents head, his arm making a squelching sound as it left the mud below. The rock connected with the man’s temple with a sickening crack, with enough momentum to knock him sideways off of Dean. Dean followed quickly, straddling him before he could make another move and bringing the rock down hard with both hands, one, two, three times, until there was nothing left but a bloody mash beneath him.

He exhaled shakily. He had been on hunts before, had put down monsters before, but never quite like this. Even a botched decapitation looked cleaner than the mess of brain matter and skull fragments he was now staring at. Something prickled at the back of his neck. He dove for his bow, just managing to get an arrow on the string before the next fucker charged into the clearing, diving for him. He placed an arrow straight through hsi gaping mouth before he could reach him, and the fucker hit the mud with a splash, sailing forwards. The arrow snapped as he fell, so Dean did not bother picking it back up. He saw more movement up ahead, and realized he was close to the station.

There was no way he could take them all on one by one in this terrain. He would need a diversion. Mentally mapping out his course, he pulled out his pistol and fire two shots, felling two shadowy opponents and drawing dozens more. Then he turned sharply to the right an ran as quickly as his legs could carry him. With the tough terrain and poor visibility, it shouldn’t be too hard to lose them during his mad dash through the woods, and that way, they wouldn’t all be swarming the radio station.

It took him another half-hour and several pratfalls before he approached the station from the northwest, avoiding the gravel road that led up to the main gate. He knew from his sketch and Blaire's explanation that the gate had been knocked down along with a significant portion of the fence. Walking up that way would be walking straight into the jaws of the beast. No, he would have to be sneakier, approaching where the fence was still standing and closest to the station itself. If he could get onto the roof without touching the ground of the compound, that would be for the best.

The fence was about ten feet high, with coils of barbed wire on top. Dean grinned to himself, despite how crap he was generally feeling. For anyone else, this might pose a challenge, but not to someone trained by John Winchester. After making sure there were no zombies on this side of the station -- most were on the other side, having broken in the main door -- he pulled off his wet, mud caked jacket and began climbing. His shirt was already soaked before he took his jacket off, but he immediately missed the warmth. He wrapped it around his arm and began climbing. Once he reached the top, he flung the wet fabric in an arch so it draped itself over the barbed wire, and used it as protection so he could climb over. Still holding onto the fence, he tried to see if he could get his jacket loose. He tugged on the fabric a few times, before deciding fuck it, anything is better than nothing, and yanked it with all the force he had in his arm.

The jacket came loose, long gashes torn by the barbed wire. Dean flung it around his neck and jumped to the ground, quickly scampering up the fire ladder and onto the roof of the small station.

The antenna and dishes above him were humming with electricity as he made his way over the roof, staying low so he wouldn’t be spotted. He glanced again at the sketch, drawn with a sharpie on a now wet piece of scrap paper. He could make out the shape of the station. Blaire had told him the zombies had taken over most of the rooms. The family was locked into the radio room, which was in one particular corner and only had one door. That one was unreachable, but Dean had an idea to get in anyway.

A fire axe would be preferable, but his machete would have to do the trick. He found a seam in the roofing and pried it open with the flat of the blade. Once he had exposed a square of plank, he knelt on his knees and raised the machete with both arms, bringing it down with all his strength, digging a deep furrow into the wood.

He kept going, hacking the roof into splinters and breaking off planks until he had the insulation exposed. He dig that away too, and soon he was faced with plates of plaster that were softening by the minute because of the steady pour of rain. He could hear voices from below, shocked and muffled by the sound of his work and the rain. When he felt the hole was wide enough, he sat down on the edge and placed the flat of both his feet spread out against the white plaster and, after calling out a warning to the people below, kicked. Two kicks was all it took before the whole plate fell off its nails and crashed to the floor.

He stood up, looking down at the scared couple beneath him. He was dimly aware that he looked like a cross between a slasher movie villain and a drowned cat, but that didn’t stop him from grinning widely, flashing his white teeth.

“Hey guys. Wanna get out of here?”

“Who the hell are you?” Was the only response he got. There were four of them, just like Blaire had told them: the parents, the twenty-two year old sister Melanie, and four year old Timmy. The mother was clutching her child closely, the sister was leaning on the wall, arms crossed, and the father was holding... was that a broomstick? Could he honestly not find a better weapon? It was only the knowledge that they had watched their son die horrible about two hours ago that kept him from making fun of that.

“I’m Dean.” He informed them. “Blaire sent me to get you guys out of here.” That got their attention.

“She’s alive?”

“Where is she?”

“Is she okay?” The questions came simultaneously.

“She’s okay. My brother is keeping her safe down in town.”

“What?! But the town is crawling with them!” The mother yelled, loud enough that Dean winced and the shellshocked kid in her arms started wailing.

“Not anymore. You guys drew them all up here. Now, are you coming, or what?” There was an odd rattling sound from below, and Dean stuck his head down the hole to see what it was. The door was barricaded with a desk and some chairs piled on top, but the whole wall was practically bulging inwards from the pressure on the other side. Apparently, it wasn’t just the roof that was paper thin. Their blockade wouldn’t hold for long. He knelt and reached an arm down.

“Hurry up.” They placed a chair beneath the hole, and Dean was handed Timmy to pull up first. He caught the kid around the waist and set him down on the roof, before reaching down to pull up the mother by her wrist. She flailed her legs and struggled to get a hold on the ledge, but eventually, he got her up by using his whole weight to pull. Melanie came next, and she was a lot more fit than her mother, not needing much help to pull herself up once she had a grip. The father came next, and soon, the whole family was sitting in the rain. None of them had coats on. Well, that was just fan-fucking-tastic. At least he was not the only one drenched.

The way Dean had figured it, they could go back over the way he came. But apparently, the barbed wire freaked them out too much. And, because nothing could ever be easy, they declined simply making a run for it as well. Well fuck. Now they were stranded on a roof in the rain with way too little firepower. Also, the yelling from earlier had started pulling the ones he had lured away earlier back to the station, shambling in through the fallen fence and swarming around the walls of the station.

Dean, cold, wet, miserable and ready to just be done with this whole thing, came to a decision.

“Alright, if you won’t work with me, I’ll have to do this by myself. I’ll draw them away, you make your way down through the forest. You know the treehouse in the garden of this two-story white house? Yeah? Good, Blaire and my brother are hiding out in it. Cut to the left through the forest, and you’ll avoid most of them.” He pulled out his gun from his waistband and wiped off the mud on his jeans. “Anyone know how to use this?” Melanie took it. “Alright then. By the way, if I die now, I’m blaming you.”

He didn’t give them time to respond to that before let out a continuous yell and ran towards the edge of the roof leaping, bow in hand, rolling in the landing and getting to his feet. He set a mad pace towards the knocked down gate, yelling like a madman as he went. There was no way to check if he was being followed. He pulled an arrow and shot one zombie that was blocking his path, before tearing past many more as he sprinted down the road.

He had one chance not to die from this stunt. He just hoped Blaire had been right about the flood. And that he could jump far enough with his boots soaked, or he would be fucked as well. Death by river was no better than death by zombie in his book. He ran, his feet hammering against the gravel, hard enough downhill that a stitch was developing in his side and he was heaving for breath between the yelling. He felt confident enough that he had a headstart when he reached a turn in the road to glance behind him. Fuck, those things were fast. Fuck, fuck, fuck, at least they were all following. This had to be the whole bloody town, snapping at his heels as he ran through the rain. He just hoped the family would make it back, or this was all for nothing.

Ahead of him, he almost breathed a sigh of relief as the stream came into view, about ten feet wide all in all, flowing with massive force over the road, out of the woods and down the hill on the other side. It was so powerful that it was pulling branches and rubble with it on the way down. No wonder they couldn’t get their car through this.

He he stopped, he was dead. If he fell, he was even more dead. Only one thing to do. He sped up, and right where the rapid water began, he pushed off with his left leg and leapt. He swung his arms forwards to increase his momentum, bow still in his hand, hoping and praying that it would be enough.

It very nearly wasn’t. He landed ankle deep in water, and the stream was so strong that it was enough to pull him off his feet. For a few panicky moments he was pulled downwards. his head hitting the bottom and being underwater for way too long, but eventually he got hold of something and pulled himself out on the other side. He stepped back onto the road and took in the sight before him, still yelling at the top of his lungs. He was going to get hoarse at this rate.

The zombies did not have the coordination to jump as far as he had. They leapt, but not far enough. Like lemmings, they stormed into the torrent, and each and every one of them was pulled aside alongside the branches and debris. They were like a stampede, being suddenly swept to the side. Dean was reminded of the ringwraiths facing Glorfindel and whatever that river with the horses was called. It had been a while since he had read the Lord of the Rings. The point was that the zombies were being carried off. Off to somewhere downstream, hopefully far enough from town. He knew the creek hit a river not too far down, and if the torrent was quick enough there, they would never reach the road. When the very last zombie had leapt to its doom, Dean stopped yelling. The roar of the river was filling his ears, but his throat was thanking him for finally shutting up. Now all he had to do was hurry back to Sam.

By the time he made it back into town he was very wet, very cold and very tired. He had met no resistance as he followed the road down the hill where it hit the main road. The treehouse was empty when he stumbled in the front gate, but he could see Sam, sitting in a window on the second floor of the house, waving at him. He grinned back and made his way up to the door. It had been forced open with a crowbar, and then barricaded with a chair, but Sam had stormed down the stairs to open it for him.

Before he could collapse in exhaustion, Dean had his little brother’s arms wrap around his waist and hold him up with remarkable strength.

“I knew you could do it.” The kid muttered into his stomach, looking up at him with. “I knew you’d come back.” And Dean knew from the pure adoration in that look he gave him, that it had all been worth it. The mud, the cold, the bruises and the bleeding gash on his temple from the fall in the river, the thankless goddamn family that had forced him to charge through a fucking horde, it had all been worth it because it made his brother happy. And looking back at it, it had been kind of badass.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am not as satisfied with this as I was with the last one, but I think it turned out okay. Please tell me how you think I did. A sequel will come if I get inspired for it, and comments are to most inspiring thing in the world to me.


	3. Teenager

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kids being kids.

After two weeks chilling along with his little brother, travelling with other people was making Dean very grumpy. A cold shower and a night sleeping in an actual house was not enough to make up for his mud wrestling the day before. He had been on hunting trips with his Dad that had royally sucked: cold and wet, sometimes in sewers or other suitably gross locations, and each time he had come home he had scrubbed himself for almost half an hour until his Dad reminded him that they were going to run out of hot water. He would guiltily dry himself and hurry to bed, and his Dad would clap him on the shoulder on his way into the shower and tell him he did a good job. Nothing made his heart swell quite like those few quiet minutes in the motel room the night after the hunt, even if he knew they would be over the next morning, the hunt never mentioned again.

He did not hunt to earn gratitude, but it was still a bit infuriating when he literally risked his life for someone, and didn’t get as much as a thanks. He woke up next to his little brother, in a warm, clean bed that someone had left behind a while ago. His whole body was stiff and sore from his run the day before. He had bruises along his arms and on his back, his hands were torn from climbing the barbed wire fence, and he had a pretty big gash at his temple where his head had hit the ground. Sam had sown it up before they went to sleep, and it was now throbbing steadily.

He knew it was silly to expect anything as he wandered into the kitchen downstairs early in the morning, finding Melanie eating cold oatmeal. Just their luck to pick a house with an electric stove, huh? She wasn’t eating the food as much as she was huffling it around, and Dean had a hard time figuring out if it was because the slop of barely soaked grains were that gross, or if she had another reason. Her eyes were red rimmed from a long night of crying. From the way she looked, he guessed she hadn’t gotten any sleep at all. Definitely other reasons, then.

He fixed himself a bowl of oatmeal as well, watching it soak in the bowl. He had eaten way more gross things before, whenever they would run out of food when their dad was gone for a long time. She didn’t seem like she would want anyone to sit down next to her, so he found himself a chair on the opposite corner of the kitchen island, far enough away that she could ignore him if she wanted to.

He ate quickly, trying not to make slurping noises, but well aware that every little clink of his spoon on the bowl was being heard loud and clear in the otherwise quiet kitchen.

Melanie’s hands were shaking. She was trying her very best to hide it, but she had to press her spoon hard into the bottom of the bowl to keep it from clattering. He resolved to finish his food quickly and give her some peace, trying to push down the sour feeling that if she was going to wallow in self-pity, she shouldn’t do it in the damn kitchen. Because he could understand how she felt. He scraped out of the bottom of his bowl and stood to leave, groaning at just how stiff his back muscles, scratch that, all his muscles were from yesterday.

“Wait.” She said, and he did. But the thank you never came, and he found himself waved off. Dismissed. He walked back up to his room, where Sam was sleeping soundly, and checked their bags. Sam had shared a box of canned peaches with Blaire, probably to cheer her up while they were waiting. He had no problem with that. Other than that, they had looted dinner from the house, so they weren’t low on supplies.

Despite the cold weather yesterday, Sam seemed fine. He checked him for fever anyway. The kid groaned, then opened his eyes. Oh well, it was time to wake up anyway. “Rise and shine, sunshine.” Sam squinted at him in the halflight, looking like he was about to go back to sleep when Dean poked him hard in the ribs. His brother was freakishly ticklish and jerked violently, scrambling to get away from Dean’s insistent fingertips. He slammed a bony elbow right into Dean’s shoulder. Before long, the episode had devolved into a flurry of kicks and weak punches, interspersed with thrown pillows. Sam got a hold of his left arm when Dean leapt on top of him, and after some wrestling, they both ended up tangled on the floor. Sam was so tiny compared to Dean that he had to be careful not to crush the kid, but he was still laughing his ass off as the kid tried in vain to escape his hold. He batted uselessly against his chest.

“Get off, you big jerk!”

“Make me, bitch.” In the end, Sam had to tap out. Dean rolled off of him, still laughing as his brother pouted pitifully. “Relax little brother. You’re gonna get taller soon. Then you might stand half a chance.” Said little brother’s eloquent response was to smack him upside the head.

Getting up off the floor proved to be a lot more challenging than he thought it would. He was more sore than he ever thought he’d been. Sam had to help pull so he could get back on his feet. He was oddly dizzy too.

“Are you okay?” Sam asked, and Dean nodded because the kid should never worry about him.

“I’m fine.”

“So, what’s the plan for today?”

“The usual, I guess. The rain has stopped, so we could be in Liberty in three days if we hurry.”

“Actually, Melanie said she could hotwire a car. There’s a van down the street with a full tank of gas. We could be in Liberty by lunch.” And spend hours in a car with this lot. Terrific. But other than his personal and somewhat petty dislike for them, he didn’t have a good argument. And the quicker they got to Liberty, the quicker he could meet up with his dad, and he really needed that right now. He needed someone to give him a damn order that made sense. He needed to be a kid again, just for a little while.

“I guess that makes sense.” Was all he said in response.

They were off at nine that morning. The father of the house, mr. Mason drove the van, with Melanie beside him. The mother was sitting in the back with Timmy on her lap and Blaire curled in under her arm. Sam was sitting across from them, with his sleeping bag draped over him because the van’s heater was broken and it was a cold day. The rain had stopped, but the sun hadn’t peeked through yet.

The back of the van had a large window that had shattered. It seemed like a zombie had tried to get in to whomever were hiding inside the van. From the blood they had mopped out before they sat down, it probably succeeded. Dean was crouching by the window, bow at the ready in case they ended up driving past the horde he had sent downstream the day before.

He watched the trees flit past. Weeks of walking down this very road had trained him to appreciate the speed they were moving at. Sam had been right. They were saving a lot of time this way.

Still, the atmosphere in the car was choking him. He wanted to mess around with Sam, joke or banter or argue, but he couldn’t do that with everyone else around. It was like they were made out of delicate china, and he had to have a freaking tea-party instead of a hearty barbecue. He was entertaining a stupid notion of grabbing his brother and their bags and just roll out of the back of the van, back onto the two lanes of asphalt and their playful bantering.

His salvation came when mrs. Mason and her son both fell into a deep sleep, and Blaire and Sam joined him in the back of the van. He hadn’t the time to have a proper conversation with Blaire, but he found himself enjoying it immensely.

“So, why do you think everyone calls them stupid shit like walkers or geeks?” She asked, her voice perhaps a bit louder than it should be considering there were people sleeping there, but Dean could not find it in himself to care.

“Cause they’re idiots?” Dean suggested.

“I think it’s a denial thing.” Sam supplied. “Like, they don’t want to admit that this is the same thing as in the movies and stuff.”

“That makes sense, I guess, but it’s still pretty stupid.” Blaire said.

“You know what is even dumber? The term ‘walker.’ Like, we’re all walking.”

“I think it comes from walking dead, so it kinda makes sense.” Blaire responded.

“Yeah, but do we have any proof that they are really dead?” Sam asked.

“Uh, they look pretty dead.” Blaire pointed out.

“Yeah, sure. But people can walk around with bad injuries without being dead, right? And about the decomposing thing, couldn’t that be like gangrene? They can coordinate movements and comprehend information, so they clearly retain some brain function.” Dean rolled his eyes at how nerdy the kid was being. “Basically, I haven’t seen any proof that they’re really dead, so calling them walking dead isn’t accurate.”

“But calling them zombies is? Aren’t zombies dead too?” And finally they were talking about something that Dean could keep up with too.

“Not necessarily. World War Z zombies are just infected by a virus.”

“You think this is viral?”

“Maybe it is viral, or maybe magic.”

“Does it matter?” Blaire asked, looking dejected. Dean wondered if her mind had simply skipped over the magic part. “Does it matter why the world ended? All we need to know is how to kill them, right? There is nothing else we can do.”

“Nonsense. For all we know, there is a way to turn this all around. Speculating and hypothesizing and experimenting is the only way we can solve this.” Sam responded.

“But if this is viral, we don’t stand a chance. To make a cure, you’d need a laboratory and test subjects and doctors who can work under a safe environment. The three of us, we’re homeless kids with no resources and no significant education. Why would it matter to us why there are zombies everywhere?”

Dean wasn’t sure if Sam noticed it, as the boy didn’t comment upon it despite being wont to do that, but Blaire had dismissed the possibility that her family would ever do anything to help. She counted them completely out of the equation. ‘The three of them’ were facing this challenge, while the rest of the family might as well not be there. He took another seconds to study the girl. Twelve years old, gangly and awkward, surrounded by family yet desperately alone where it counted. Dean knew what it was like to not have anyone to rely upon, nobody to keep him safe from the monsters outside. He had a feeling a lot of kids were feeling that for the first time.

“It matters because if we figure out the why, we can figure out the hows. How they are made, how to stop them, how to manipulate them. We might not be able to make a cure, but we can keep fighting.” Dean said. The moment he had finished his little speech, the atmosphere seemed to change, like when you have a sinus infection which suddenly clears and the pressure is released. Neither of the children around him remarked on it, but their shoulders fell and they looked at him with this form of awe that he hadn’t seen on Sam’s face since, well, since forever. It was the way Dean looked at his father.

The van was slowing down. Dean stood and walked to the front of the van, leaning over Melanie’s seat to see what was up ahead. They had arrived in Liberty.

 

Between the first two houses -- a convenience store and a antique shop -- a long bridge had been built from unpainted wooden beams. Two men were standing on guard duty on top, both of the national guard armed with M16s. The road was completely blocked by two large buses parked horizontally. From the bridge, a banner was announcing that this was the entrance to the “Liberty Refugee Center.”

A soldier stepped out of one of the buses and walked over to where Clark Mason was rolling down his window.

“Evening sir. Anyone in there infected?” Clark answered that no one were. “That’s good. Welcome to Liberty. You’ll be safe here.” It was a short introduction, but once it was finished, the man jumped back onto the bus and the two of them split apart to allow them safe passage. Behind them were a set of chain link gates with barbed wire on top.

“Why would they need both the buses and the gate?” Blaire asked from where she was squeezed beside him.

“To keep people from ramming through it with their cars.” Dean explained.

“Why would they need to defend themselves from humans?”

“The end of the world makes people act in stupid ways.”

“Don’t be silly, Dean.” Clark said as he drove forwards. “They just wanted an extra line of defence, that’s all. Don’t let Dean scare you, Blaire.” Like Dean was a stupid teen making up stories to scare the kids. A good for nothing delinquent who needed to be stopped so he couldn’t be a bad influence on the children. He glanced at Blaire who met his gaze and rolled her eyes.

As they drove, Dean noticed more about how the refugee center was built. Liberty had a main street with tightly packed stores wall-in-wall with each other. They had apparently realized how this was a pretty natural fortress, and had blocked all side roads in the same manner as the gate they had passed through. There were other gates too, in the middle of Main Street, only they were open. Dean guessed they were in case the zombies breached the first gates. The advantage of the bridges was also pretty clear. As a last line of defense, they could abandon the street altogether.

Through various windows, he could tell each store had been effectively cleared out. New laminated signs nailed to each door announced the new purpose of the buildings. They passed shelters one through five, the Red Cross clinic, the national guard barracks, the soup kitchen, the national guard headquarters, the armory and the supply depot before they were directed into the parking lot of the local police station. A soldier directed them towards a free spot. As far as Dean could see, it was the only one available. Apparently, a lot of people had been migrating here after shit hit the fan.

They were told they could leave their bags behind to begin with. Then the whole family was marched into the police station. Dean and Sam stuck back, not wanting to be mistaken for part of the group. All they wanted was to ask where their dad was. A problem struck Dean that he hadn’t considered before: he wasn’t sure which name their dad was going by on his hunt. But then again, he had wanted them to meet up with him, so he must have planned to use his real one eventually, right?

Dean was familiar with all of his father’s aliases, but he wasn’t sure it was a good idea to just ramble them off and see which one stuck.

Checking in was a quick process. The Masons gave their name and a quick rundown of the supplies in their car. The food was collected, but they were told they would get everything they needed at the soup kitchen. Then they were assigned rooms in shelter four and sent on their merry way. They had the common decency to wait outside while Sam and Dean got their business done, though, instead of locking away all their stuff.

During the entire walk up to the office, and the wait while the family was being handled, there had been this growing knot in Dean’s stomach. It was hard to describe the feeling as anything but physically painful, and somehow ominous. Somehow he knew exactly which answer he would get when he asked about his dad. Because he was a Winchester, and their lives were a long series of regular kicks in the stomach.

And that was exactly how it felt, when they told him their dad wasn’t there anymore.

The reception of the police station was not exactly crowded. The only other people there was the secretary (former assistant mayor) and national guardsman who had brought them in. They both looked suitably guilty when they told them, as carefully as possible, that they had thrown their dad out of their safe haven and told him never to come back.

Sam had been nothing but polite and happy when he came in, but his extrovertedness had vanished the second they told him. Now he was hiding behind Dean, holding onto his jacket. Dean could feel the little guy tremble, but as much as he wanted to hug him and calm him down, he knew he had no chance to do so until he had calmed down himself.

A good parent would put their kid first. He knew that. But Dean was a fifteen year old kid who needed to let off some steam. He compromised by speaking to his brother in the calmest voice he could muster.

“Sammy? This is gonna take a little while to figure out. How about you go hang out with Blaire until I’m done here, huh?” Sam looked doubtful, but one glance at Dean’s rather strained face told him he should probably get out of dodge for a while. He waited until the kid had walked away from the building before he turned back to the secretary, took a deep breath, and exploded.

If he was a more introspective person, he would realize that the words he was saying meant nothing. They weren’t as much an expression of his anger at these people or the world in general as much as they were all of his bubbling anxiety finally finding an outlet that made sense to him. Screaming at a wall or at his innocent brother didn’t make any sense, and so he held off from doing that. But these people -- this soldier and secretary whose names he hadn’t even learned, who he knew nothing about -- they had wronged him, and so they were a target that made sense.

Because everything he said was meaningless, their responses were meaningless as well. The assurances that they had a really good reason for tossing him on his ass into the freaking apocalypse, apologies that they had hurt the boys, begging him to understand that they didn’t know John had two sons, none of it truly registered because boy did he not care about anything they had to say.

In the end, he found himself sitting on the steps outside the police station, leaning on the wall behind him and feeling so very, very tired. Sammy had gone to eat lunch with Blaire and her family. Dean ached to get back to him, but it was just another dull throbbing that seemed to permeate his body. Every bruise, every cut, scrape and sore muscle were weighing him down, keeping him sitting in the shade on a day where he really should be indoors with a glass of water or something.

Dad wasn’t here -- the one place where he was supposed to be. He had taken the Impala and left in another direction: not even heading their way. Dean didn’t have the energy to wonder why he wouldn’t go looking for them. He had to consider what to do now.

This was a safe place. What remained of the national guard had fortified it and had the weapons to defend it. They had food and doctors and people who wouldn’t mind looking after them. Dean wouldn’t have to bear it all alone. But none of them were family. None of them were what he had walked two hundred miles to find. None of them were the only person who’s approval he had ever wanted. He hated them. All of them.

And so, for once in his life, Dean made a decision for himself. He put his own well being -- or what he thought his own well being was -- ahead of that of his brother. Sam protested, but Dean didn’t fall for the puppy dog eyes this time. So in the end, Sam hugged Blaire goodbye (so did Dean, but totally only because the little girl had her arms around him before he could dodge) and the two boys packed their stuff and walked off into the apocalypse.


	4. Undercover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam has a disgusting idea that just might work.

Before the world went to hell, Sam always had choice words to say about Walmart. Exploitation of labour, killing small businesses, cheap clothes made by even more exploited labour and crap food way too cheap to be eaten by humans. Dean would roll his eyes every time he brought it up, and their Dad would completely ignore them. The problem was that Walmart was a pretty unavoidable destination when you lived below the poverty line. They could afford anything ethical, or high quality, or even healthy. All they had was cheap crap paid for with stolen money.

Now, all they had was cheap, tattered crap they had looted from businesses full of dead people. Sam had a relatively new pair of sneakers that had once been white but were now stained an ugly brown by the blood of the kid they had pulled them off of. He had been about Sam’s age, and had shot himself in the head to keep from turning from a bite on his arms.

In some ways, life was a lot simpler now. Nobody was calling CPS on them, for example, and that was a huge weight lifted off of Dean’s shoulders. Every day was a challenge, but he no longer had to keep up the pretense that they were just dandy kids. 

Speaking of challenges, and Walmart for that matter, this place was going to be an absolute bitch to loot. People had cleared pretty much every store and shelter dry of anything useful, and so the two boys had been forced deeper into zombie territory to find food.

“That’s a lot of dead guys.” Sam said, looking through the binoculars. They were sitting in an electrical pole, the kind with crisscrossing metal bars that made it easy to climb out. The power had gone out ages ago, so they figured it would be safe. Sam insisted there was none of the usually ever-present crackling noise that power lines made when you were underneath them. Not that Dean would know. He had developed tinnitus at a young age because of overexposure to firearms, and that sound had been constant in his ears for almost ten years now. He was pretty sure Sammy was better off. He hadn’t been at many hunts, and Dean always made sure he wore both earplugs under the hearing protection.

The ‘lot of dead guys’ were shambing about the massive parking lot of the Walmart. You don’t fully appreciate just how big those things are until you are forced to walk everywhere.

The armies of the dead had conquered the entire concrete and asphalt kingdom in a flash, only to stand swaying in the afternoon breeze because there was nothing within walking distance to draw them away. Some of them were pacing restlessly, others were lying down, with only the occasional twitch to reveal they were still undead.

The parking lot was packed, with most of the cars standing neatly in their spots. Only nearer the exit back to the highway were the cars abandoned by increasingly desperate shoppers hoping stock up in the last minute before the dead hit. It was these people who had doomed everyone inside, blocking the only exit by car. Dean imagined someone had tried to make a run for it, but there wasn’t a hiding spot for miles and the dead never got tired.

Sam hung the binoculars around his neck and unfolded a map from his shoulder, marking the location of the swarm with a sharpie he had stuck in his mouth.

“I think we might be near ground zero.” Dean climbed down to get a good look over his shoulder. Sam was right. They had mapped out far more stationary swarms around this town than anywhere else they had gone so far. It made sense that Liberty had been hit as hard as it did: the refugees had fled down the road, leading every horde in miles radius towards Liberty. Sam and Dean had made it past even more of them migrating, mostly by cutting through the woods.

It was Sam’s idea to try and map them out. Honestly, Dean could have kicked himself for not thinking of that sooner. The zombies went after sound, and when there were no humans to go after, they tended to stick together. Some hordes moved slowly, spurred on by some human that outran them, or maybe a dog knocked something over and got one guy to shamble in his direction. The others followed like cattle, and soon the whole aimless parade is on the march. Other times, there was no such sound, and they just stayed put.

A map like that, updated periodically, might be the most valuable tool to surviving the new world.

Now, back to the issue at hand. Neither of them had eaten all day, and Dean hadn’t had much yesterday either. He wasn’t starving, not yet, but he knew they needed food soon, or they would be in trouble. The Walmart hadn’t been looted, because nobody in their right mind would approach a death trap like that.

“Do you think we can lure them away?” Sam asked. Dean considered it for a moment.

“Even if we do, it’ll just be the ones on the outside. I bet the place is packed inside too.” Sam hummed in agreement, face screwed up in concentration.

“Maybe if we managed to lure them in and kill them en masse?”

“And how would we do that, genius? You have a machine gun hidden somewhere under that hair?” Sam pulled a patented bitchface.

“That doesn’t even make any sense, jerk!”

“It doesn’t have to, bitch, the point still stands.”

“Maybe we could put them on fire? There must be a lot of fuel lying around.”

“It’s mid-summer and there are no more fire departments. We’d end up burning down the whole state. And our loot.” Dean wiped sweat from his brow to prove his point. The grass below them was yellow and dry with no sprinkler system to water it. One spark was all it would take, and once it hit the woods it would be too late to stop. While it would sure put down a lot of dead guys, he couldn’t even imagine how many survivors would either be killed or forced to flee their sanctuaries. Hell, if the wind was right, the wildfire might go all the way to the Border, where the army guys tasked with shooting anyone who might be infected (which generally meant anyone walking, crawling, or moving) in order to protect what was left of Free America would drop their rifles and hurry around to try and stop it. Those guys were organized enough to start a counterfire. Still, that was hundreds of square miles of holocaust destruction, with thousands dead or dying. It sent a strange thrill through Dean to think they could pull off something like that with a single match. It also made his stomach flip to realise literally anyone else in the area could do the same thing at the same time.

“Alright.” Sam conceded. “We can’t fight our way in. But maybe we can sneak in.”

“Sammy? Did you have a heatstroke or something? This place is completely open. There is no way we’ll get in there unspotted, unless you are planning to go underground? Dig around like Steve McQueen in The Great Escape?”

“In this heat? We’d be baked in the sand. But it’s something to consider for later. But seriously, I have a plan.”

 

“This is the most disgusting plan you’ve ever had.” Dean declared. “In fact, it might be the most disgusting plan  _ anyone _ have ever had. Like, what the fuck made you even think of this?”

“Stop whining and stand still, would you?” Sam complained. Dean forced himself to stand still as his young brother draped a long piece of zombie gut over his shoulders. They had found a straggler not that far up the road. Dean had put an arrow through his skull, and now, Sam had split it’s stomach open and begun pulling out the innards.

“You sure I won’t get infected from this?” Dean asked.

“It has to enter the skin to infect you, I think.” Sam responded, pulling out more messy gunk and smearing it all over his jacket. This thing was ruined forever, but they didn’t exactly have spares lying around. The smell over overpowering, a constant, heavy barrage of rotten, metallic  _ wrongness _ . That was the only way he could describe it. His brain was screaming at him that this was  _ wrongwrongwrongverybadgetitoffgetitoff!  _ He swore he was about to pass out from just how awful it was.

“Oh, you  _ think _ ? Just like you  _ think  _ this is going to work?”

“There is no reason it shouldn’t work. I mean, these guys don’t attack each other, so if you look like them, smell like them and move like them, there is no way they’ll know you’re human.”

“Undercover in Zombieland. Jesus Christ, Sammy. This is dumb.”

“Do you have a better idea?” Sam asked pointedly, smearing more goo over Dean’s back, then going down his jeans. He didn’t. He really, really wished he did, but he didn’t have any better ideas. And he was already covered in disgusting goop that they didn’t have the water to wash off, so he might as well go through with it.

He carried his machete in his belt, ready to be pulled if he needed to fight quickly in close quarters. The bow was slung over his shoulder with the quiver, because he was not leaving his weapon behind. Other than that, he brought with him a large, empty duffel bag. Sam was going to set up camp on top of a small power station thingy, just high enough that they wouldn’t be eaten if they got swarmed, and he would have all of their stuff there. It was also close enough that he could see the Walmart entrance through his binoculars. But the most important part of the equipment was something they had looted a while back: a pair of walkie talkies that could have earbuds inserted.

Dean popped in a black earplug and adjusted the volume until he could hear what Sam was saying through it without someone hearing it if they had their head right next to his.

“Keep your voice down while talking to me, you hear me?” He warned Sam.

“I will.” This time, there was no joke. This wasn’t really a joking matter. “Be careful, will you?” As if walking straight into a zombie-infested mall could ever be described as careful.

“I’d hug you, but you know...” He joked, holding up his gore-covered arms. Sam wrinkled his nose in disgust and took a few steps backwards, just in case his big brother changed his mind.

“Good luck, jerk.”

“Thanks, bitch.” And then he was off, walking down the four lane highway towards the Walmart. He began walking quick, not wanting to waste his time shambling when he was so far away from the enemy, but once he neared the exit ramp, he slowed down and began a weird hobbling walk. He pulled out his machete and held it in his right arm, while he kept the bag slung over his left shoulder.

He was approaching the area where all the cars were backed up.

“There is a whole group of them gathered right behind those cars.” Sam informed him in a hushed voice through the earpiece. “You’re gonna have to go past them on the grass.” Right out in the open. It went against all his instincts to do so. Yet he knew that despite all his riffing, Sam was a smart kid. He wouldn’t have sent him into this if he didn’t think it would work. Heads snapped around to face him as he passed the cars and found the group. One of them was stuck between a BMW and a pickup truck, with his whole calf smushed together. He had a prosthetic arm that made a loud banging noise against the cars each time he moved, which probably explained why he had such a large crowd around him.

“Slow down.” Sam hissed in his ear. “They’re getting suspicious.” Dean was breathing heavy gulps of air, trying his best to be quiet. He was certain the zombies could hear his very heartbeat. Every instinct told him to run. His stomach was rolling, fluid sloshing about making him queasy, even if he knew there was nothing to throw up. They really needed this food. He forced himself to stumble a bit and slow to a shamble. He dragged his feet, knuckles tightening around the machete.

The zombies began moving, but not running like they would if they saw a piece of good meat. Just dithering like ducklings after their mama. The guy with his calf smushed banged harder at the cars around him, either frantic to follow or frantically trying to get his crowd back. Dean sped up when he felt the breath of one of them against his neck. He couldn’t turn to watch them, but he knew that running away would only get him killed. So he walked agonizingly slowly, sweat beading on his forehead from both the heat and the stress.

It dripped down his face, catching in his eyebrows and running down his chin. It itched, mostly because he couldn’t scratch himself.

“You’re about to walk straight into the thick of it. It’s the only way to the entrance.” Sam informed him. Dean tensed up, expecting to be jumped from behind by his dead duckling horde any second, but it turned out the voice was too low for them to hear. “Just try not to run into anyone, okay? I’m gonna shut up for a while until you get clear. Give the radio two taps when it’s safe to talk again.”

Dean tensed up even further when he passed the last car that had been parked in the road by some asshole who didn’t realise he would doom everyone present by blocking the only means of escape. There weren’t hundreds of them, there were thousands. A Black Friday crowd without the fervor, standing around like a wall of rotten death.

He caught a glimpse of the entrance up ahead before the crowd gathered around him, drawn by the movement. Like he was a damn celebrity that for some reason left behind his bodyguards. He had to slow almost to a halt, hoping it wasn’t too sudden, because there was suddenly nowhere to move without  _ touching  _ any of them. He hunched his shoulders, trying to fold in on himself and disappear as they came closer and closer, shuffling until he could feel a shoulder touching his own, until uncoordinated hands pawed at him.

A pair of hands landed at his shoulder from behind. Fingers gripped the jacket, catching hold of one of the long trails of guts draped over it. Another hand reached out of nowhere grabbing a hold of his hair and pulling his head to the side. He followed it meekly, closing his eyes tightly because if this went south, there was nothing he could do anyway.

“This isn’t going to work.” Sam whispered in his ear, breaking the radio silence. “I’ll draw them away. Just hang tight.” Dean’s eyes flew open. No way. His brother would not be bait to save him. But there was no way to stop him. He couldn’t move from where he was squished between lukewarm, rotten bodies that didn’t realise they were fucking dead. His heartbeat was spiking, higher than he ever thought it could go. His whole body was vibrating with the need to get the fuck out of there and away from the grabby arms.

Fuck it. If they could go around grabbing people, then he could push right back. He began straightening his head again, pulling carefully against the fingers in his hair. The zombie holding him eventually let go, allowing him to stand tall again. He still knew which way to go towards the entrance. The dead fucker directly blocking his way looked like he belonged in a ‘people of Walmart’ compilation. Or had belonged, anyway. Now his ample belly had been split open and it’s contents were trailing behind him and provided food for every fly in the state. It was honestly a miracle that he hadn’t tripped on his own innards.

Dean wanted to close his eyes again, if only to keep the buzzing flies out of them, but he knew he needed them to be open and aware for this. He squared his shoulder and began moving, getting right up into Guy of Walmart’s space, doing his best to scrunch up his nose and breath through his mouth to keep the all-encompassing smell away. He resisted the urge to lean away and pushed, keeping his spine straight and using his shins to create the force. His kept his arms down at his side, unwilling to lift them in case he ended up blowing his cover. And this way, he wouldn’t end up dropping the machete.

He met a pair of glassy eyes, wishing zombies had proper expressions so he could tell if he was doing something wrong. He pushed and pushed, but Guy of Walmart was too heavy, and all he did was squish himself against a soft belly, no doubt adding more gore to his disguise from the contact. He was getting increasingly claustrophobic. They were still closing in, drawn by his every small move, and if he knew zombie behaviour as well as he thought he did, more and more were piling on around him.

He hated to admit it, but whatever distraction Sam came up with might be the only chance he’d get.

It took a little while for him to notice it when rescue finally came. Sam was smart enough not to rush headfirst into danger. He had returned to their dead gutsack on the highway and covered himself in gore just like Dean. Once he arrived in the parking lot, he moved slow, stumbling past the group crowding Dean and drawing them away a few at a time. He shambled in a circle, drawing the attention of more and more zombies with each passing. Finally the group began clearing, the movement enough to give Dean some space. He watched in astonishment as Sam carefully mapped out his route, leading the zombies like a mama duck without getting caught in his own tail. Like Snake, Dean realised.

But the parking lot was packed with cars and zombies, and the way Sam was moving, he too would be trapped soon. Besides, it would be no good if the zombies kept trailing after them: they couldn’t keep this up forever. An idea struck him, and it was so brilliant he wanted to laugh out loud. It wasn’t really like a mama duck and her ducklings: more like lemmings. They follow each other, so as long as they have  _ someone _ to follow, they’ll continue.

Dean began moving, shuffling slowly in increasingly large circles as he began gathering up the stragglers. Mister Handsy who had finally let go of his shoulders and Guy of Walmart were the first ones to follow him. He caught Sam’s eyes as Sam finished another tour of the nearest line of cars, waving the fingers of his free hand in a circular motion and hoping Sam would get it. The little guy was smart, after all. He hated to put him in danger, but once they were there, there was nobody he would rather have watching his back.

The parking lot was big, too big for their purposes. But if they excluded a couple of rows, they could get movement flowing a circle. Dean began leading his trail, keeping the speed so they got spread out in a long line instead of being a flock. The goal was that as many as possible would follow each other instead of him. The sun was beating down on him, making him dizzy. The shambling, unsteady walk wasn’t entirely a ruse anymore. Still, he kept going, glancing over when he was halfway to see that Sam was doing the same thing across from him, completing the circle.

It took five rounds before the line was complete enough. By then, Dean was dead tired and wanted nothing more than a cold soda and a motel room with air conditioning. But those were amenities of the past. The hard part would be escaping the circle of death without breaking it, or even worse, making the zombies suspicious.

Moving to the side would ruin the whole flow. But stopping might solve the problem. He was right in front of the entrance when he broke free, hooking the strap of the bag on a side mirror on a car. He kept stumbling, like it had been an accident and he was desperate to go with the flow. He wanted to pump his fist in the air in celebration when Handsy and Guy of Walmart kept shambling after the tail end of Sam’s group instead of sticking with him. He glanced back and forth to make sure the same thing was happening to the zombies behind, then dropped down and rolled under the large pickup truck so his break with the group would be even more clean.

It took another half-turn before Sam was in position to do the same thing, and it was the worst ten minutes of Dean’s life, watching his baby brother stumbling in line with undead monsters twice his size. When the kid finally rolled under the pickup, Dean crouched down so he could get a good look at him. It was clear that he was even more dehydrated than Dean was, his face flushed red and his eyes glassy and bloodshot. His big brother instincts were taking over. He needed to get fluids in this kid, and soon.

“It’ll be packed inside too.” He warned Sam in a whisper. “Stay close.” He kept his hand on the kid’s arm when they moved in a crouching run towards the doors, glancing back to make sure the circle continued moving.

The automatic doors weren’t working because the power was out, but lucky for them, someone had left a shopping cart tilted over in the opening, giving them room to climb in. They were spotted the moment they got inside.

This time, Dean let instinct take over and brought up his machete, ramming it through the skull of the attacker. There was a cracking sound as he broke the skull, followed by a wet squelch from the brain, but Dean caught it before it fell to the ground and drew more zombies down on their heads. They left the dead zombie right next to the door and entered the store proper.

It was packed. Not so much that you couldn’t move, but more so you couldn’t do so without having to angle yourself around someone. There were shopping carts everywhere, partway stuffed with essentials and abandoned when the owners met their untimely demise. But the most noticeable thing was the  _ smell. _ Not just the dead people, but also the rotten produce and the expired meat and the spoiled dairy, all mixing together into a wall of  _ jesus christ I can’t breathe.  _ Sam clung to him, fisting the back of his jacket with his free hand and clutching his hammer with the other.

They headed for the canned goods section first.

Canned goods was the kind of thing people stocked up on when the apocalypse hit. Consequently, it was a mess. Most of the cans were pushed off the shelves, into shopping carts that were crashed or overturned, sending the cans rolling in all directions. Clearly, people had still been shopping here when the chaos hit. There was blood on the floor, crusty brown flakes, covering some cans and lying beneath others, because apparently one dead guy on the floor was not enough to put people off their hoarding.

Said dead guy was still on the floor, upper body writhing lazily as the two not-really-dead children entered his aisle. He was lying on his belly, with a big-ass machete jammed straight through his spine. Someone had tried to defend themselves before they knew how to kill the dead.

The dead guy twisted to look at them, letting out a rattling breath that sounded somewhat confused. Now came the tricky part. Any non-zombie-like movement would out them as members of Club Alive, and that would be enough to get their membership cards revoked. So the challenge would be to fill the bag without making any suspicious noises or movements. Bending down to pick up the cans on the floor was out of the question, and for the most part, so was taking them from the carts.

Dean began shuffling down the aisle, artfully avoiding the cans on the ground. Kicking one of them wouldn’t mean the end of the world, but it would draw even more zombies and make the job harder than it already was. There was some comfort in having a huge shelf on two sides. They both felt less exposed than they had outside, even if it logically meant they could get boxed in more easily. A can of chilli disappeared from the shelf. He made sure the bag wasn’t resting on the floor when he let it fall into it, satisfied with the low sound. The next one wouldn’t be so easy because it would clink against it. The solution was to manipulate the way he held the strap, so the next can fell into the other end of the bag then rolled carefully to rest against the other one. Sam helped, pulling cans off lower shelves and placing them in the bag carefully.

There was a stupid kind of thrill to it, like the first time he had stolen food from a store, times a hundred because this was life or death. There was no Dad to bail him out if he got caught. Sweat was beginning to slick up Dean’s fingers. Both of them flinched as a can of beans slipped from his hand and fell into the bag, making a dull clank upon impact.

The zombie on the floor went berserk. Arms flailing, teeth clicking as he tried biting on nothing. The sound that came out of his mouth was an inarticulate snarl, but it was enough to draw a helluva lot of attention, if the shuffling sounds from outside the aisle was anything to go by. Dean could sense that Sam was about to bolt, so he grabbed onto his arm (winching at the guts smeared all over it) and held him still. There was nowhere to run. They would have to see this through. But they also knew from their experiences outside that they couldn’t stand still. They needed to keep the crowd flowing, or they would be stuck.

The first zombie rounded the corner ahead. His blue apron denoted him as a former Walmart employee, now proud member of the Legions of the Undead.

Dean had been in this situation before, where a suspicious employee approaches slowly, eyes searching for anything that would justify grabbing him by the collar and pulling him into the manager's office. He had learned what to do to prevent that. The first few times, he had fucked up, and had to bolt outside. Then he had to come up with some form of excuse for why he couldn’t go buy food at that store later. Faking illness or having Sammy fake an illness was his favorite method. But he learned quickly that it was not a good way to solve his problem. He needed to learn how to act when people were suspicious of him.

Getting defensive only made him look guilty. Getting offensive was a great way to get the cops called on the spot. The best way to get out of the situation was to act like there was no situation. Look genuinely puzzled as to why someone is approaching you. Play up your youth, make the guy feel bad about scaring some kid. People hate being stranger-danger.

People do. Zombies don’t give a shit. Clearly, his method would need some adjustment. Still, the underlying concept was the same. There is no confrontation. The other zombie might as well not be there. That was what he kept telling himself as the former Walmart employee stumbled towards him, kicking at cans, sending them rolling all over the floor.

They met chest to chest, and Dean remained still and tall. He wouldn’t flinch away and wouldn’t push against. The guy had brown eyes which were now covered with a milky film. They looked straight into each other’s eyes, and Dean noted how the pupils focused on his face at normal speed. No problem with their vision, then. Nostrils flared as the guy tried to get close enough to smell him properly. Dean twisted his head so he was constantly in the way, not wanting the guy to get close enough to smell the fresh sweat. He didn’t hold his breath, matching the rhythm rattling through the zombie’s chest. He had been bitten on the side of the neck, a mockery of a hickey which had turned black and was still leaking pus.

After about thirty seconds of being close enough to kiss the guy, he felt something press into his hand. A can of some kind, handed to him by Sam’s sweaty little hand. The thrill running through him intensified. He was undercover in zombieland, stealing their food literally straight under their noses. He wanted to grin, but he settled for making the most zombie-like sound he could make and slipped the can into the bag. The low clicking noise went unheard over his rattling breath.

After that, the job became easier. He exchanged a quick grin with Sam when they decided they had enough canned food and made their way to the next stop: the weapons. Sam slung two semi-automatic rifles over his shoulder and stuck a few good pistols in his waistband. Dean could see it was weighing him down, but considering he himself was carrying a good hundred pounds of canned food in a bag, he didn’t feel like he should take those on his own back. Instead, he looted as much ammo as he could carry.

They picked up some clothes from the clothing section. It wasn’t easy, considering the hangers made a lot of noise and they couldn’t exactly try on the sizes, but they each got two shifts and new jackets. Dean picked up a pair of shoes for Sam as well.

Sam got a hold of plastic bags so they could carry more. They picked out giant bags of cereal and large tubs of peanut butter and nutella. A whole bag was filled with various packed candy, and another duffel bag from the sports section was filled with drinks. The last stop on the way was perhaps the most valuable, though. The pharmacy.

This time, they snuck straight into the back room, which was blissfully empty. With a closed door between themselves and the legions of the dead, they took their time picking out the most valuable medicine. The kind people would really need now, but which had been looted everywhere else. Because they weren’t going to keep this all to themselves. Sure, Dean had gone in only intending to get enough for himself and his brother, but for each can he snuck into the bag, he realised just how good he and Sam were at this.

These days, anyone could kill a monster. But helping people was more important than ever in a world where most people couldn’t even take care of themselves.

They found a pair of sack trolleys in the storage room of the pharmacy, much to Dean’s relief. His shoulders were beginning to hurt. They strapped down their loot as well as they could, keeping some on their backs. Then they left through the back door, eventually heading west. There was a settlement that way, they knew.

The Winchesters were back in business.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this took for freaking ever to write. Thank you for reading, and I hoped you enjoyed this.
> 
> Kudos are love, comments are life.


	5. Lessons in the Apocalypse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Maybe they should have washed off the zombie guts before approaching the survivor camp. But it was hardly Dean's fault the idiots couldn't tell the difference between the living and the dead. 
> 
> About a year has passed since the Plague began.

 

“Dude, you sure we shouldn’t wash off the disguise first?” Dean scrunched his nose. The disguise did stink, but putting it on was even more unbelievably gross. Dipping a hand into the split open stomach of a rotting human being, even a gloved hand, was without doubt the worst part of their job.

“Dude, a good man died getting us these guts!”

“He was a zombie, and you have no idea if he was a good man. He could’ve been a serial killer, for all we know.”

“I think a full year as a zombie counts as time served.” Dean declared.

“Just serving your time for murder doesn’t make you a good person.” Sam insisted, and Dean could not believe they were having this argument again. Sam had been nine when he began talking like this. He had this self-righteous streak when it came to people with criminal records. Dean had been worried he would get himself into trouble mouthing off against other hunters, a lot of which had records. But moreover, it kind of pissed him off that Sam would speak that way about people living on the edge of society. Dean knew very well that there were a lot of factors that pulled people towards crime, and that in the wrong situation, he could easily be the guy behind bars.

He should know better than to argue with Sam by now. But this particular issue just rubbed him the wrong way.

“Then what the hell is the point of going to prison in the first place?” He didn’t mean to raise his voice, but he was sixteen and kind of an idiot, so he did.

“Prison pays back your debt to society, it doesn’t fix your soul.” Sam responded, and Dean nearly gawked.

“You a religious nut all of a sudden, Sammy?” The twelve year old froze, suddenly defensive.

“Do you have a problem with that?” Sam’s face was set, his jaw clenched tightly. His eyes were hard under his way too long bangs. He needed a date with the clippers soon, Dean thought absentmindedly, trying to get his mind off of the mind-boggling reveal. Long hair was less than flattering when they couldn’t shower regularly, and  _ where the hell did the kid even pick up religion?  _ He and Dad were both hard atheists. Nothing was real unless you could show hard proof.

Maybe he had picked it up from Pastor Jim? But Dean had never heard him preaching to them. He never tried to have them pray before dinner or before bed, even though he did so himself. Dean suspected Dad was the reason why Pastor Jim toned back the religion. They mostly got along, but Dean knew Pastor Jim was scared of John Winchester. Most people were, at least a little bit.

Maybe that was it. Dad was so opposed to religion, Sam was bound to pick up on it. And ever since he reached age ten, he became dedicated to opposing their father in every way he could think of.

Dad wasn’t here, and Dean was not in the mood for arguing about this.

“I don’t get it.” He admitted. “But I don’t have a problem with it.” Sam’s eyes widened in disbelief. Jesus, the kid thought he’d take Dad’s side every single time, didn’t he? There was a lump in his throat that he refused to swallow because then Sam would see how much it hurt that he didn’t trust him. He adjusted the large bags strapped to the back of the bike he was pushing. There should be a temporary survivor camp up ahead. The spot was pretty well used. Two months ago, a caravan of forty people had been camped up there. The guys in charge of that one were pretty clueless all things considered.

They had brought up a whole load of medication. The brothers had a policy: provide medication for all children. An adult could stand being in pain or having a fever, but no kid should have to go through that.

They hadn’t had the time to scope out this group, but if there were children there they would ask them to stay a little longer so they could get a bigger med supply from the Walmart. Their cornucopia was too valuable to leave behind. Luckily, the zombies around it provided excellent security. The nastier groups might want to raid the place and keep it all for themselves. The medicine and the weapons stored there made it one of the most important caches in the state. Everything else had been looted and spread out.

This load was mostly food: a good selection of canned goods. They were careful to pick the food when they handed it over. Not just because they had to move around a lot while undercover in the store, but also because people got sick and tired of food when there was no variation. Once they had handed this over, they would look and see if there was anything else the group needed.

There were several reasons for why they always handed out food first. Food was always something people needed, so it was a good way to break the ice, and it gave them a chance to gauge what the new group needed. But more importantly, it was a resource they had a lot of. The Walmart had just received a string of deliveries of canned goods before the store closed. Dean suspected it had something to do with the early attacks in the area making people paranoid. But most of those cans had never been sold, and so they were ripe for the taking. If a group turned out to not be worthy of their help, they could dump the food and run at a low cost.

They were approaching the top of the hill overlooking the valley of the campsite.

“We’ll put up shop here.” Dean broke the silence, mopping sweat from his brow using the inside of his wrist so he wouldn’t get gore all over it. They never went all the way into the camps. Not all survivors were good people, and they preferred to do this on their own ground.

“Who goes down?” Sam asked, leaning his bike against a tree. The heavy pack on the back of it made it swing around the tree, and he had to hurry to catch it before it fell. Dean parked his own bike and stretched, rolling his aching shoulders. He had been pushing all the heavy goods, and he was certain he was going to feel it for days.

“Not sure. How bad does it look?” Sam pulled out his binoculars and approached the bushes at the edge of a small cliff. They knew this particular spot was impossible to see from the campsite, which was another reason why they had picked it. The kid lay down on his stomach and looked in between the stems of the bush.

“They don’t look like cannibals, at least.” He reported. “Pretty big group, five vehicles and a whole lot of tents.”

“Children?”

“Nahh... wait, I think I saw one.”

“Any red flags?” They had learned a lot about scoping groups in the past few months. Sometimes they had been met with guarded suspicion, sometimes with open arms and concern, and sometimes with guns and machetes. It was a red flag if everyone were huddled into one group, or into multiple groups with armed guards around. It was a red flag if there were children who didn’t play. But mostly, it was all a gut feeling. Sam had a knack for it, but just to be safe, Dean crawled under the bush to get a look too.

The cars were arranged in a protective circle around the firepit in the middle of camp. There was a lookout, an old man sitting under a parasol on the roof of an RV. A group of women were down by the stream. Dean could see their skirts flowing between the trees as they were hanging up clothes to dry on long improvised clothes lines. Other people moved around, presumably with their own tasks, though it was easy to see they weren’t in a rush.

“Clear division of chores.” He commented.

“But clearly not being forced.” Sam pointed out. “That’s a good sign.”

“Discipline seems to be lacking.” Dean felt the need to say. “Good for us, bad for them.”

“It’s better than the opposite extreme.” This wasn’t really a discussion, more a series of observations.

“Security is lax.” Dean said. “Doesn’t look like it’s just the lack of weapons either.”

“There might be a patrol further out.” Sam pointed out. “If they just have a couple’a fighters who nobody likes.”

Dean froze.

“If they have a patrol, this place will definitely be on their route.” And, because apparently real life has great dramatic timing, that was when they heard the low murmur of voices and the unmistakable sound of footsteps moving up the hill from the left.

Sam and Dean extricated themselves from under the bush and stood up, trying to look harmless despite their weapons. Fighting a patrol was always dumb. People tended to be upset if they approached a camp dragging their protector with an arrow stuck through his shin.

This time, however, the thwang of the bowstring wasn’t coming from him. A bolt clipped his ear, and then both Sam and Dean were diving to the side. Two people approached, one big man charging, a smaller one with long hair working to reload his crossbow.

Dean had his bow off his should before the longhaired redneck could cock his crossbow. As much as he would have wanted to put an arrow through the man who was charging at his little brother, they would both be doomed if the crossbowman wasn’t stopped. He let the arrow fly, piercing the man’s upper right arm, lodging itself midway through in his bicep. He wasn’t going to cock any crossbows any time soon.

In the time it had taken him to shoot, the big bald redneck had charged at Sam, going flailing when the small boy had dodged to the side. The big man caught his balance fast and spun, only to be brought to one knee by a powerful blow from Sam’s hammer.

“Sammy!” Dean called, and the kid took his cue to jump back and hide behind his brother. Dean positioned himself so he could see both the big man and the crossbowman, arrow pointed straight at the man on his knees.

The guy was cursing up a storm, rolling off his knee and onto the ground. Dean almost winced when he got a good look at the damage Sam had done. Luckily for the guy, it wasn’t the kneecap he’d hit, but the chin beneath. Still, the force of the hammer had broken the bone, and a piece of it was sticking through the skin under the knee.

Unfortunately, the guy had the wherewithal to pull a gun from his waistband and point it at Dean.

“Merle!” The longhaired crossbowman called. “Put the gun down! They ain’t walkers!”

“Yeah, no shit, Sherlock!” Dean declared, angrily as the adrenaline wore down. His arm was starting to ache from holding the bowstring taunt, so he took a step back and let it down. “That’s the kinda thing you check before you go charging in. Or shooting, for that matter.”

Merle refused to drop the gun, but his whole arm was shaking with pain, and Dean was pretty sure the odds of him actually hitting at a few feets distance was miniscule. That didn’t stop him from nudging Sammy even further behind him.

“The little shit fucked up my leg!” Merle declared angrily, jabbing the gun in Sam’s direction like that would make his aim better. Dean rolled his eyes.

“Oh come off it, you pussy! You just got your ass handed to you by a twelve year old. Try and preserve a little dignity, man.” That didn’t make Merle look any less murderous, but Dean hadn’t really expected it to. The other guy was approaching, with his crossbow hanging at his side by a strap around his neck, and cradling his injured arm with the arrow still stuck through it.

“C’mon man, you know Shane will be pissed if you kill a kid.”

“I don’t give a shit what Shane does!” Merle declared, but he was looking more pale. That could be pain and blood loss, though, so Dean wasn’t going to hold it against him. Threatening his baby brother though... he was definitely going to hold that against him.

“If you even fucking try to touch my brother again, I’ll make that leg look like a freaking love tap, you hear me?” He demanded, pulling back the bowstring again for effect.

“Threaten my brother again, and you’re dead, kid or not!” The crossbowman declared. Dean stuck his chin up.

“I’d like to see you try.”

“Guys! Quit the posturing already!” Sam yelled. “And quit the yelling too. We’re gonna draw the horde up at the Belltower down on us at this rate.” Dean didn’t bother pointing out that he was yelling too, because Sam wasn’t done and turned to Merle. “And if the yelling ain’t enough to draw them, firing that gun certainly will be. So put the fucking gun down.”

Whether he did it because of Sam’s admittedly reasonable argument or out of exhaustion, he did put the gun down, body slumping on the grass. Dean refrained from pointing out that the ‘bell’ in the belltower was a zombie in a full suit of armor from LARPing, locked in a cage covered in cymbals in the tower of an old wooden church. From his high position, he could always see something that riled him up, and the noise he made was constant. Even a gunshot wouldn’t draw the whole horde.

The system had probably been Sam’s craziest idea to date, and it had taken a whole week to pull off, including carrying the trussed up former LARPer for miles to get him into the tower. But in the end, it had proved to be worth it. The nearby city wasn’t exactly safe, but every zombie was focused on the tower, so it was pretty much okay to drive or bike through.

There was a pause where the four of them considered whether the argument was over.

“We thought you were walkers.” The crossbowman said finally, a statement that kind of served as an apology.

“Zombies usually don’t care archery equipment.” Dean sassed back.

“Living people usually aren’t covered in guts.” The crossbowman responded without missing a beat.

“See? I told you we should have washed them off!” Sam announced triumphantly.

“Yeah? Well, you’ll get to harvest the next one then.” Dean responded petulantly.

“Why, because I was right? How does that make sense?”

“It makes sense because I’m the oldest, bitch.”

“That’s not what sense means, jerk.” There was a groan, and they were reminded of the man with the open fractured leg.

“Oh right. First aid. Stop whining, you big baby. I’ve had worse breaks, and you’d never hear me grumbling about it.”

“Nope. You cried like a little baby.” Sam responded gleefully as he pulled the first aid kit out of the bag strapped to the front of his bike.

“Like you cried when you broke your arm jumping from that roof?”

“I was nine!”

“Nine year olds should know Batman can’t fly, much less a kid in a Batman costume.” The crossbowman held his brother down as Dean reset his leg, then helped create a splint out of nearby straight branches and some rope he had with him. When they were done with the big idiot (they even gave him some good painkillers, because they were nice like that), Dean helped stabilize the crossbowman’s injured arm. It was a shame he had to break the arrow, but trying to pull it out whole would do a whole lot more damage. It would have to be pushed all the way through.

Dean didn’t exactly disinfect his arrows after use either, so this wound could get nasty. They’d have to get back to the Walmart and get some strong antibiotics, and fast.

Jesus Christ. He’d known this job wasn’t going to be easy when they started, but he’d thought the repeated infiltration of hordes, or even the pushing the heavy goods around would be the hard part -- not dealing with idiots who couldn’t tell the living from the dead.

And maybe he should wash the disguise off next time. Sam would never let him hear the end of this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter that basically came out of nowhere for me. Someone commented on a previous chapter and asked for Dean calling Merle a pussy, so here you go. Never let it be said I don't take requests.
> 
> Thanks for reading. Kudos are love, comments are my new life force.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments make me happy :) If anyone has sequel ideas, please tell me.


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